 HBCU Dodgers Radio Dodgers After Dark, welcome back to intriguing conversation with young alumni from historically black colleges and universities, indeed a full house this evening. Or is the Morganite tiff about to get thrown off the show? Frat brother Eric, Laurel from A&T, Lyme brother Katie, Winston get him to school, and Oona on Instagram. That's her new, that's her new name. Oona on Instagram, that's all I'm saying. So we got a lot of people because we got a lot to get into. And the first thing we got addressed is, so we're, we're about two weeks into the semester for some institutions, which have returned to some form of in-person instruction. And as we discussed last week, and I think this is going to be a recurring lead off for us, is that folks just folks won't stay in their room. But now we are operating on that topic in a new realm where schools are actually shutting it off. They're going to online learning. We've seen North Carolina do it, University of North Carolina. Was it Notre Dame has done it also? There's a couple more. I want to say NC State has done the same thing. And there will be more to come. What is interesting about the conversation is you haven't yet seen it from HBCUs. You haven't seen information about widespread outbreaks among students or faculty. You haven't seen information about schools that have actively started in person instruction reverting back to online. I guess the most responsible question is, how long is this going to last? Or do you think that the HBCUs are doing something right in the sense that even though students are standing around, perhaps the testing is such that the few people that may have it or had or did have it when they got to campus, they've been able to isolate them or send them home? Is this a case where HBCUs, which have led since the beginning of this pandemic, are still continuing to lead even when other schools are struggling? So listen, I think to a degree when we're looking at the students, it is in a very interesting way a way, a form of blaming the victim here, this is a situation that the students were trusted upon. For many of these Black students who are at HBCUs, they were outside over the summer, protesting, marching, still being engaged in the issues of the day. And we're not contracting or being diagnosed with COVID, not saying that all of them were doing it properly. But for the most part, a lot of them were probably outside, to a degree, right? So I think it's one thing to form the discussion in that way where it's like, well, HBCUs, we're not hearing about things about these outbreaks, we're not hearing people. It's one thing of these people outside. Another thing of they're having a room party, like some of the non-fracts and sororities are having on these PWI campuses, right? But I will say the very interesting part about this is looking at places like the NC school system that low-key are hitting the kids for a lick and waiting until tuition is kind of... The day the tuition drops to get rid of in-person obstruction. The day the sisters drops is like, guess what? Y'all online. Laurel, you went to school in Carolina, you didn't go to Chapel Hill, you went to A&T. And just your knowledge of that state, not that you know every white person that was trying to come outside or every Negro that was trying to come outside. But the politics of that state and why this was even a move, the students have criticized it, the faculty have criticized it at Chapel Hill, they've criticized it at every school that has had a revert back. Is that something that even matters down there? I mean, so with Chapel Hill, I mean, I personally, I just feel like it's karma just because of everything else they've been ignoring and now they've been put on the summer jam screen, so I'm kind of just... I mean, I feel like in A&T's case, since we are under the UNC system, I do feel like the fault, if we're going to a sign fault, is on the board at UNC Board of Governors. And that's why in response people are saying, okay, can all the individual schools now on their own do whatever they want to do since y'all done messed up. But also, I feel like the reason why they even decided to come in person wasn't even really all on the BOG, it was probably the donors, especially with Duke and Chapel Hill. It's not just their actual administration. They have a lot of people, I call them shadow people, including all the statues and everything else, that they influence a lot on campus. And I feel like, you know, A&T needs to be like, that's none of my business. I feel like students, I mean, I don't think it's the fault of students. Students are going to do whatever they want to do. You can't control people. The most you can do is be prepared and at least have an exit plan. So if you do end up shutting things down and it's not even two weeks, then that's what you have to do. And not, you know, we just don't have time to sit around and point the finger at, oh no, is this person's fault, is this person's fault? We need to keep it moving because it's already a disruption and I feel like more of that is just, so I feel like at least in North Carolina, I mean, in the state, I don't know if the rest of the schools will because, oh, well, we don't want to be next. So why don't we go ahead? Because it's already like the school year has already started. It's already started. So it's like, you know, whatever it's going to be, it's going to be. It is what it is. Or do you think the students have some responsibility in this? Because there's two things I'm hearing about it. One, if the students really wanted to be out of their mom's house and on campus, they would not gather together the way that they're doing. But then the other side of that is, okay, but keep in mind, we're only bringing back a certain amount of students. So it's not like you're at A&T and there's 10,000 undergraduates out there on the yard, maybe like, you know, 200, something like that. Do the students have any level of blame in what's happening? No, I don't think that they have blame. They should take some type of onus. But that doesn't look like that doesn't necessarily look like we're going to accuse them of doing things that they aren't necessarily capable of. They're front alone. They close yet. That's where all the reasoning goes. And if they can't reason, these are the same people that we have to tell us register on time. You have to see the time that you have to attain. If they're not doing that, you weren't in a socially distance and that wasn't the culture prior. So we're going to blame the customer as opposed to putting things in place that will assist them. I just came from New Orleans. They were taking temperatures. They were taking phone numbers so they can do contract tracing if necessary. When I got off the flight, they were doing similar. Where are the faculty and staff and administration doing the things that are necessary for those who big studies that aren't prepared to move forward in the manner that they've studied, right? Because again, like I said, their reasoning, they have, they don't have the effortful processing that they need. So, aggregate perception. So no, it's not the students to blame. They need to be led. Or do you agree with it that the students have to be led by the adults when it's clear that the adults are operating on politics more than the reality of what young people are going to do? I think so. But I think also from a student's perspective, I don't know if they really knew what they were getting themselves into. I mean, let's be frank here. Being on campus and you're room with nothing to do is worse than being at home with nothing to do. At least at home, you have some level of freedom. You can have a bit more space, usually a bit more social interaction. Did you think people wanted to sit in a room by themselves like their solitary confinement for three months? I mean, I just feel like it's utterly ridiculous to say to people, go from an area where you have social interaction and people who love you, people who care about you to a foreign place where you have to sit in your room for 24 hours a day clicking classes online. So I just feel like bringing them back to campus and having nothing for them to do because you can't do anything was a recipe for failure. So you can blame the students, you can blame the faculty, the staff and the administration, but either one is a bad outcome. I don't see anything good coming out of this because either you're going to be in isolation on campus, isolation at home. I would prefer to be at home with my family, even though we've been together for the last four months. But would you, would any of you want to sit in your room for four or five months for 23 hours a day, only going out to get food and whatever else? I guess you go outside, take a jog. I mean, what else is there to do? It's like jail. I mean, I need to compare it to prison because it's not prison, but the, what they're asking students to do, what they're asking students to do is something you'd ask someone to do in detention. I'll use the word detention. Shout out to Rawlins Hall at Morgan State. Those jails are like, rooms are like prison with the metal, the metal closets and beds. Tiffany, you ain't much farther. No, it's not, but you're not real unless you come out OC. You actually chase some brothers off the block who were not socially distancing in front of your town home. Can you talk? Can you talk about what exactly is it? Are they doing, they're not doing bad things. They're kind of just standing around listening to music, right? It's not, it's not, it's not, it's not like, you know, to use Lowell's term, it ain't summer jam for real. I mean, they're just, they're just standing around, but there's danger in just standing around at this point. Jared, Jared, I gotta, I gotta be like I'm gonna let you finish. I'm just saying all the, all the videos I've seen around and listening to music. This is not a sock hop. This is not 1950s. Let me say this. I've seen one video, I won't name the school where people were strolling and like they were crammed in and it was, it was, it was, it was a, sorry. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. Name them. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna name the school either, but there's a school in the south where they had a major incident we won't talk about, but they do a way more than just standing there listening to music. Maybe I'm missing the videos. I've been off, but I, so if, if that's true and it's interesting cause North Carolina A&T Chancellor Harold Martin came out. He did an interview today where he talked about that they're monitoring social media. They are actively using their, their campus safety forces to try to break up stuff. They're, to my knowledge, they've not been in any arrests or any incidents of brutality or roughing people up. But is it by and large, all of y'all agree that it's, it's, they really partying. They're not just standing around talking. They're actually partying. That's what all y'all say. Wow. I'm surprised. I'm not gonna name no school. I ain't gonna let school block saw some videos. 18, 17, maybe 19 or 20 year olds to do around this time. It's still hot. The block is hot. But what, I mean, okay. So what, what are they doing? I got, what are they doing? I got, I got, I'm not saying it's, nobody's saying it's inherently wrong. Because at the beach. Okay. They're at the beach. It's by nature. Right. It's by nature. They're having, they're having They haven't made Katie, you said it's not wrong. But what, what is the activity currently wrong? What is the activity that takes it to the level of y'all? No, y'all shouldn't be out here. It is close. Because I have seen more than 20 of them. 20 of them in a small space. It's one thing to avoid. Right. It's one thing to, but it's just, it's one thing just to be out on the yard, because we've all been experienced like yards where people were just like out on the breezeway. But let's be frank, it's still early outside. It's still early in the semester. So people ain't gotten serious yet. And it's still warm outside. Right. And I mean, he just, he just can't deny those two facts. Like if it's nice outside and it's still early out there, people just gonna be out there anyway. Tiffany, you were going to say Let me tell you, they being real tribal. The dances are very tribal and homelandish. Really? Tribal and homelandish. Really? I'm moving between them all. I didn't see these videos. I hope I'm reading that correctly. Oh, sure. Tiffany, you're my social media liaison. So tell me, tell me what, I mean, what do you think? Listen, listen, listen, listen. What makes it wrong? I'm sending you some links after this, man. I'm sending you some links. Okay, true. Please. What makes it wrong is that this is still a global pandemic. That's the only thing. What they're saying, they're aping you. This is a kind and a low and amenable dis-e. All right. Let me, let me ask you this question. Because you're spitting right now. But if you were still at Howard, would you be in your room? Or would you be on a quad? You should be on a quad. First of all, we have a yard. Everybody has a yard. But I'm just saying. No, no, no. Our yard is called the yard. You're dodging the question. Would you be on it? Yes or no? No. And we're going to go to our first commercial. Oh, it's a lie, man. It's a lie. It's a lie. We're going to cut the commercial. What's going on? Let's cut to the next segment. Let's cut to the next segment, man. We follow it. We follow it. We follow it. We follow it. We follow it. We follow it. We follow it. I was in my room. So I could say what an eye. I can't introvert the minority. Like, let's get out of here. And we're going to go to our first commercial. We're going to go to our first commercial. The lies. The lies. The lies. The lies. I got to be honest. If it were me, if it were me, even as old as I am, at 18, I would be outside. You'd be sitting outside Jenkins. I would literally be sitting on a wall somewhere outside. If I had no action and I promised you, I would have been outside. Everybody would have been outside. And it's the lowest point that young people think that they don't. She said this last week. They think that even if I do get it, it won't be that bad. Not thinking about that if you catch it and you're asymptomatic and you do get sent home because everybody's standing outside, you're taking that back to your people. You're taking it back to the community. You're taking it back to your apartment. You're taking it back to your house. You're taking it back to the job where you work. So it is truly, you just don't have the maturity level to think through. You need to. These young kids are getting heart, these young kids are getting heart conditions. Like, these young kids are getting liver damage, kidney damage. Like, this is not, even if that's not readily reported, they don't know. They don't know. We just learned that. For us to be saying this, what we would do, if we were in that age range of what we're saying now, as knowing better, as grown people with fully formed, frontal lobes, these kids would be led. And the world would have been, y'all staying at home, y'all could do that. Absolutely right. I think somebody intimated that earlier though. Y'all friends, like y'all would, like y'all would actually, come on, I know mad stuff I did undergrad. I'm like, y'all, I'm thankful I survived. Hey, listen, I'm gonna say this before we jump off and take this first break. And the truth of the matter is, most of the young people that are on the yard, I would imagine that a healthy percentage of that group are not the students who their parents said go on to school. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of parents who kept their kids at school and say, give it a semester. Let's see where we are springtime or maybe even next fall. But you can still resume classes online. I don't want you to go to campus. A lot of those young people that are on campus are probably folks who are basically doing it on their own, where they're coming from homes, where their parents are probably like, I don't care what you do. And so they're probably- If they, exactly, if they're living with their parents. We're gonna talk about the next big headline, HBCU graduate extraordinaire at this point, Kamala Harris officially accepts the vice presidential nomination for the Democratic Party. What does it mean for HBCUs? We'll be right back. Dodgers at the Dark and we're back. We wrapped up a conversation about students not staying in the room, how many of us wouldn't do the same. Let's get into the other big headline. Howard University's The Pride of the Bison, Kamala Harris officially accepts the vice presidential nomination of the Democratic Party last night, shouts out, HBCUs, everybody feels good. It's tough for me because I want to have faith in the system. I want to have faith in what she professes to love about the HBCU community. I have no doubt that she does. The scary part for me is that we're coming off of, for however evil and twisted this administration may be, it was rather productive for HBCUs. And I wonder if Biden-Harris pick up steam, they win an election, is there reason to believe that her HBCU ties will turn into HBCU policy? I just don't, I mean, this is a difficult conversation because we can't talk bad about Barack Obama. You can't talk badly about Kamala Harris. Unless you have receipts, Obama gave us receipts. We will see with Senator Harris. Is the symbolism enough to make you optimistic about what we may get from a Biden-Harris administration centrally on HBCUs, centrally on HBCUs, not overall because Laurel mentioned this before, there's a lot of stuff to clean up when they get here. But that is not to say that we should let HBCU funding and HBCU development go to the side. Katie, let's start with you. I'm going to be hopefully optimistic because the community set records of donations to the campaign that the Harris made the ticket. And so I would hope that means that we had the air. And I want to play about the numbers because we really are talking about one percent of the country literally in terms of who we're assisting. So we have to sell it in a way that makes sense for them to invest in our schools. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I have this high expectation for them to solve every problem within the system as in regards to HBCUs because they got to start with K-12. And before you even get to K-12, you got to solve the pandemic. So I'm hopefully optimistic that we'll get there eventually but I don't expect anything immediate if they win. So we just have to wait and see. Winston, what do you think? I think my focus for them is like trying not to reinvent the wheel basically. Like there's things like the White House HBCU initiative, things that are already in place, things that the current regime has already tried to roll with. So my hope, my optimism, and to Katie's point, my optimism in the situation would be that they kind of build upon what's already there and see what ways they can try to fill into the systems or things that were already in place, kind of moving in that direction. Just kind of similar to what we talked about before with President Obama, the pressure that comes with being an African American president or vice president in this case, and then the history of her being educated by an HBCU as well. Folks might be kind of looking at, what are you, how much are you really riding for them? Are you giving them preferential treatments? Those kind of things. So my hope would be just kind of like, again, moving with stuff that's already there and investing in that job opportunities, in terms of opportunities, hoping to see some young people from HBCU's opportunities to work in the White House or those kind of things. That's kind of like where I would hope to start with. Maybe on low being able to kind of give donations up and talking to folks about those things, but in general, just trying not to reinvent the wheel and working with the systems already in place. I was talking to a president earlier today, and I thought it said at you, Ona. This president told me it's almost a catch-22 in the sense that if Trump wins again, HBCUs are gonna, he's gonna tell HBCUs a new one because what will happen is black folks will not have voted for him. And there will be no reason to be beholden to them in a second, to us in a second term. If Biden and Harris wins, it might be the same, go along, get along, do an HBCU commencement speech, but nothing, don't do anything substantive because they know they got us. Do you think that's a legitimate assessment? I had never thought of it like that, but it looks like this president, this one president believes it's going to be dire and it's gonna be tough no matter who wins. Would you accept that? I mean, it is gonna be tough. I think that people assume like when Obama was in office, oh, we're gonna get this, he's still a president and he still has to follow certain guidelines. Like he's not solely here to do things for us, right? So with the administration with Biden and Kamala, like the thought process that we're gonna get something simply because they're there is full of things, like bedroom is full and when you move like that, expecting somebody to give you something, you end up in a tight space. So we should still be working towards those things that we need, but knowing that she understands because she wants to however, because she understands HBCUs, because she understands D9. And I think that people still need to do their due diligence. People at organizations need to do their due diligence as well as remaining, I would say remaining hopeful, like Katie said earlier, but you've got to do your work. Ain't no handouts because there's still policy in place that is intended to hinder us in so many different ways. That means systemic, like it is what it is. Laura, what does that work look like then? Because we always talking about, you know, the HBCU community has to be more active and engaging with our elected officials. And we got to be more nuanced in asking and talking about policy issues. She has already shouted out HBCU, aka divine nine. So she's already pointed out, yo, here are three groups that I'm affiliated with. Is that the, do you think that that's the point of contact for reaching her or is it the same thing that we've been doing? Urban League, NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, or do we have to do a new thing? Or do we rely on our traditional means? I mean, I think it's a both and situation because of course, since she's already technically plugged in at the same time, if elevated to this new office, she's going to have less time. Because again, this is a new situation where it's not just the regular duties of a VP, but also that's like the extensive cleanup post Trump on top of whatever else the universe decides to throw at us. Hopefully no more pandemics. So I think that her networks, both AKA Howard should definitely be at the front of the line, but they shouldn't be the only people in line and that everybody has a role, whether they're a student, early professional, seasoned professional, CBCU member, all of those networks. I mean, I say this all the time, that black people don't like to collaborate when it's really necessary. And I feel like after this, if we don't unite truly, not just everyone with their own separate agendas and trying to touch the hem of Kamala's garment in order that they personally can achieve something, but more so like, okay, this is something that needs to fix or this system does not work. So how do we do a new system? You're in a position where you can actually actively do something hands-on. What are you going to do? And so, I don't know. It's a fascinating point that you're making and I will toss it to Eric. You do work with the HBCU collective. So you all actively talk about legislative engagement on HBCU issues. How early, if you haven't started already, how early do you begin the conversations with that Biden-Harris campaign in anticipation of a win where you start talking about how do we get this, how do we get the ball rolling on some of these things? So it's, that's, I want to say earlier this year and last, well, no, last year, primarily speaking, HBCU collective, I mean, we remain bipartisan, but we're open to whichever candidates on any level of government want to actually work with us in formulating HBCU policy because it's important to have people who, I like to say, for one extent, a lot of people who are the ones shaping policy at the percentage of HBCUs have no connection to it. They don't look like us. There's not a lot of people who represent us or come from places that we come from that are in these rooms talking to them. So that changes things, right? And I think, we've been engaged in everything going on, but I think with us right now, there's a couple of things that we're working on and I'm not going to spill too much that last night, her comments were really a call to arms and people don't really understand what a call to arms means. A call to arms means that there should be a level of expectation that comes with, but like you said, like it's great to have this feeling like, oh, well, we should know that we have the ears. Okay, yeah, sure. Let's think that we have the ears. Now it's time to talk and we don't do a lot of talking once we think that somebody, has our ear, right? So when you're in a situation where, oh, well, they know us, they see us, they understand us, that don't mean they're going to do nothing. Like, and I hate to say it, but like, not all alumni members are family, not all frat brothers are, not all frats are brothers, not all sorrows are sisters, right? So like this belief that her being in that role is going to change things means that we want her to, but we also are going to continue to push the agenda that we need her to follow through on it, right? Because the unspoken truth is that she also wants to get elected, reelected in four years and possibly get elected herself in eight years. So this is when it starts. We start pressing the issue now and having an expectation that she has to follow through, but we can't expect somebody to hear us if we're not talking. Laurel spilled the secrets on this last week. She'll be the president. If they win, there's going to be something that comes up where Joe Biden doesn't finish this term. And so essentially, you are voting Kamala Harris for president. Now, to that point, if that is true, if that is the plan, if that is the standard... I hope it's not, because people hate individuals that didn't get elected. Well, people hate women, unfortunately. And that's going to be a problem, a huge problem. Not that she isn't sharp because she's brilliant enough to do it. She was brilliant enough when she campaigned. You can have some issues with a record. But certainly it shouldn't be a thing where there's a question of, is she too ambitious? She can't run a campaign. You know, all that nonsense. But I would say, Tiffany, to the point of the access to Senator Harris, Howard is probably the strongest one that she has. I would even say stronger than Alpha Kappa Alpha, in a sense, because they can't directly lobby and promote and endorse and do a lot of political things. Howard folks can just in their private lives as citizens. So do you think that Howard, whether that's through the Alumni Association, whether that's through a chapter, whether that's through whatever kind of venue, takes the effort to start saying, hey, let's start talking, sis. I appreciate the question. But no, and I'm trying to say this as best as I possibly can. But the simple answer to that is, I can't tell you how Bison moved. I literally can't. I can tell you what I do that's unique to other Bison, but that's just an understanding that we have as Bison. So for instance, the day that the honorable Kamala Dee Harris was named Vice or Biden's pick, I think another Bison got elected to, I think Fulton County, something D.A. or something. It was another row. Yeah, it was another that came out right after that one or right before it. And it was like, duh, no brainer. Like this is what we do. And so there are Bison who are in supportive roles in government, local governments. State government, whatever leadership role and those who influence others who may not be Bison in these roles is either you're in it yourself or you're influencing a decision to be made. That's the best type of answer that I can give that question. And more to the point of it's about creating a path of I think the least resistance to get what it is that we need. So clearly, a president, a vice president, they can't do anything. Well, they shouldn't do anything alone for somebody like the honorable Kamala Dee Harris. You just going to keep saying the honorable? Yes, I am because that's what she said. She's going to need all the help and the help that we can do for her as people of the organizations that she's part or not organizations, but the communities that she's part of is to elect people who can get the things that we need done done. Well, I think that you make an interesting point because that speaks to how eager and how aggressive are we going to be electing folks to Congress. Orris, go ahead. You had a last word? I'm a little pessimistic just because I see the tide changing within the Democratic Party. So, for instance, someone who really is more of the Kamala Harris type is Lacey Clay, who just got beat. Like when we look at things changing, we look at, like I said, like Cori Bush winning that election or winning that primary, she's going to win the election. Obviously, it's a runaway in St. Louis. But with those type of things changing, I see her very centrist, moderate, Democratic views not necessarily aligning with those views of working class, Black people, and those are the people who go to HBCUs. So, even if we get funding directly from that administration, will the policies in place really benefit working class Black people? And I'm very pessimistic about that. And again, I was very frank. She was not my first pick. I think she's very centrist. And because she does want to win in eight years, I don't believe that she's going to be as aggressive as I would like her to be. Just like Obama wasn't as aggressive about who she's going to be. So, I think that's going to be a very difficult play. And, you know, only time will tell. But in the same way that Black people, in some sense, gave Obama some passes, I think that she's going to be given those same type of passes. It's just going to see how long it takes her people to really start to say, hey, where's the legislation? Where is the push on these things? Because to this point, within Biden's particular platform points, I don't know how much he can get done. Because even the Democrats are going to be a bit more splintered. I see after this election, with the changes happening in St. Louis and Baltimore and Florida, it's going to be difficult. It's tough, man, just to wrap it up. I mean, because you're right, in a sense that you're not just talking about progressive versus conservative policy ideals now. You're now talking about socialist versus progressive versus conservative. And so even the Democrats are split on, are you liberal enough? Are you progressive enough? So they have to hash stuff out. Just like the GOP had to do when the Tea Party broke out. They had to fight and say, they were saying, you're not conservative enough. So the parties have shifted in doing these things where people- And remember, nothing got done. During the Tea Party movement, nothing got done. Because they fought each other. Everything got put off. And then on top of that, to Katie's point, all of this conversation ceases until you fix the pandemic. And however, whatever that price tag is, whatever that final number is that said, you got all the testing you needed. You got all the PPE you needed. You got all the workplace loans you needed. Now let's talk about running government. That may be a problem within itself. And it may shape out to be that Biden and Harris bear a burden of a price tag that they can do nothing about. And so- Yeah, we're so unfortunate. Black folks just gotta- We gotta be more nuanced and more dialed into- Exactly. How does government work before you say, Connell is the savior and she's gonna do it. You know, it's the same thing with Obama. Keep in mind, like there are other wins that we can get as a community outside of just funding for HBCUs. If they magically pull off getting rid of all the long student- You know, eradicating student loans for everybody. Yeah. Doesn't that affect the bottom line of- It affects HBCUs students, right? Yep. You know, so it's just stuff like that. We just gotta redefine print. Some stuff is for us, it's just not gonna say it's for us. Or some stuff we benefit from, we just gotta figure out how we benefit from it. That's all. Just be patient. We got a long, even when you look at it, we got a long four years ahead of us. Ain't nobody patient in the age of Twitter, baby. No. Let's take another quick break. We're gonna come back and talk about sports, pushing things to the spring. What is it gonna look like to have football and basketball running simultaneously, so to speak? And what does that mean for HBCU Homecoming? Dodgers have to dark, we'll be right back. Dodgers have to dark, welcome back. Let's talk about sports. The two Division I historically Black conferences, the Southwestern Athletic Conference and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, well, the conference formerly known as the MIAC for the rest of this year. They have announced that they're going to push football to the spring and have released schedules to that point. So if everything goes well, Lord willing in the creek, don't rise. Football will begin in February, which for those of us who are truly tie-died HBCU alumni know that that coincides with CIAA and the MIAC and all kinds of stuff. It looks stupid, it looks stupid. Take the words out of my mouth. No, no, but look, but look though, it looks stupid for ways that like, first of all, like we worry about the wrong thing. All right. Like my thought process is here, like explain to me why all of these boards have not came in call together or meeting via Zoom or whatever they choose. They came together and said, we need to amend our FY 2020 budget. We can reallocate all this money to a sport that we've spent in this year. So I don't know updating classrooms so they can actually hold hybrid learning, moving money towards the research. So our research actually outweighs our athletic spending for once, or I don't know like fixing dorms, fixing facilities, updating things that actually matter in the long-term, considering that you were given a reprieve this year. This year you can actually prioritize academics over athletics. And so because you can't go nowhere, can't go nowhere anyway. So I might like, it does look stupid. I don't care if a single sport is played this year in HBCUs. I really do not care. I care if these, if our schools don't take this opportunity and happen to improve themselves in the midst of this moment. Tiffany, do you care about sports? Because you rarely go to games. I think you went to one as an undergrad. Does it matter to you? And I'm not asking that in a this way. I'm asking, and I'm going to describe you as a casual fan. You will watch sports if it's something where you have heard this may be intriguing to watch. Does it even matter, does it matter to you if football and basketball are running at the same time in the spring? First of all, I want some more than one game. That's one. Prove it. I have three out of the four shirts from the one house Howard and from the classic that was happening. So you went to the store. Right. No. Shopmysen.howard.edu. I was there. Don't do that. That's one. I think it's great for people to have hope. I would like to see it. I would like to see it. I would love to see it. And given the fact that we are still in a global pandemic, I don't know how any of these students will be prepared to play in the spring if it even happens. Because are y'all practicing? Because if y'all practicing, that means we're violating social distancing and all of that. So practice. Yeah. I just have all the questions, but honestly, I would like to see it only because are we going home or are we not going home? Are we doing what we have to do now to make sure that we can be somewhere in the spring? I would like to see it. That part. So let me ask this. Only you? I don't care if they happen at the same time. I really don't care. Now, I don't have questions though because who's paying for this? Well, I mean, you would have believed the NCAA that this is why this is a factor because they don't want the NCAA to withhold scholarship support resources. You don't want to withhold TV revenue from ESPN and local affiliates and stuff like that. So they're trying to say, yeah, we're not going to play in the fall because y'all made a big fuss about it. But we're going to do this in the spring. So don't withhold that money from us. But look, we just keep pushing things along. We just keep kicking a rock down the road. That's what this whole thing has been. Remember in March, they said, oh, we're going home with the exception of the HBCUs. We're going to go home for the rest of the semester. But everything else was, oh, give it two weeks. These rules and social distancing, we're only going to be closed for two weeks. Then it's a month. Then this is going to be over by Easter. Then it's like, oh, we'll be back for beach week. It'll be gone by 4th of July. So all of this, remember all the closings, didn't really come until July, maybe late June, July. People weren't really announcing, ain't going to be no fall until June, July. They have been kicking this thing down the road. But at the same time, it's like, yeah, people are like, we're kicking it down or they're kicking it down the road. But we're still not doing what we need to do as people being responsible wearing our masks, socially distancing. We talked about this. Everybody's stupid. The 18-year-olds don't have a developmental frontal load. The adults are politicking about it. We don't want to be in the house no more. Everybody's dumb. You haven't accepted this back yet? I'm going to give the same challenge group of kids. And I'm going to give the same challenge, the group of kids, hope that we're going to be playing somewhere in a spain. And that doesn't make sense. Because we know the longer you keep kicking it down the road, we're just kicking it down the road. We're not doing what we need to do. Let me jump in. Let me jump in. Look, numbers are going up. Numbers are straight going up. And they're not changing. They're not changing their posture at all. So with that said, what are we going to do? People are coming from math. And then they get to the institution and they got that. And then they go back home and then they're going over here and they're traveling. Where's that? Where's again, the temperature check, the test. I don't want to just have a wedding. And he had everybody tested so that they wouldn't have to wear math during the picture. That's the type of forethought that universities need. But what I'm saying, so I'm just saying from the prospect of everybody's trying to sell optimism, right? Everybody knows this ain't going to work. They just trying to, yeah. Oh, they fall for it. So I'm just saying, let's pretend that this actually works. And from a logistical standpoint, no, I don't want to, no. Nobody wants to pretend. Mr. Rogers, I'm not doing that no more. No. Like you can't, we can't make believe that this is going to like disappear. That's what, that's what 45 said. And then here we are. He said Easter. So I mean. Right. And here we are. I think and I think my biggest problem with it is even if they play, who's watching? Right? They not power one school. This is not LSU. It's not, it's not, it's not, you know, Alabama, right? You know, like who's watching? We'll watch A&T. They come on TV all the time. Sure. But those are a hundred million dollar programs per year, right? They make money off of athletics. Our schools don't. You know what I, you know what I think? Who's benefiting from them playing? That's true. Because even, even if they get tape out there, nobody's going to trust it. No, you know what, I just remind me of something that tips it on the podcast a long time ago about athletes who just don't like be processing the thoughts of things all the way through, right? That's right. And I'm, it's worse than that because I think the, I think it's like, I think the athletes are dealing with something that like also administrators are dealing with, right? Because the thought process for a lot of is that we're, we have these campus athletics that don't yield any revenue, but we have them because they're supposedly yielding some revenue. So now they are going to miss the revenue, which really isn't the issue of missing revenue. It's the issue of they don't have a means to spend money. So it's like, are you not really, like, and not my question is like, for some of the D1 schools, are the money games really yielding that much money that they are really, really willing to like say, oh, we're going to have sports somehow, even though it makes absolutely no sense. Like they're not processing thoughts at order. And at the end of the day, like I said, these schools are making decisions that pertain to students. Here's the thing. And not thinking about academics. Let me throw this to Laurel because she's the only one out of all of us that goes to a football school that is actually currently good. The fascinating part of this to me is that in all of this conversation about any sport, pro or college, and more so college, you don't hear the alumni and the fans saying, no, don't do it. For the most part, you're hearing them say, yeah, I'll buy some tickets. If you're social distancing in the stadium, I'll go, it's not like you hear the alumni saying, I'm not for this. So at what point do you think it's possible that alumni play a factor in saying, yeah, go ahead and push it because I want to go. I want to see an Aggie football game at one and then go see a basketball game at seven on the same campus. Traffic be damned, all that stuff. Do you think alumni are going to actually say, y'all are taking this too far? Y'all are doing too much or are they going to be party to it? Because that's a big, that's a big part of this equation. If alumni say, we're not coming and we don't like this, maybe there's a different decision. But if alumni are saying, we for it, what do you do? I mean, you also got to remember, a lump like we got, let's see grandma, grandpa, let's see their hybrid communities that ain't going nowhere. They're going to watch it on TV. If you know somebody secures some funds or the Kenzie Bezos want to cut some more checks so people can have a little bootleg NBA bubble. So they're not going anywhere. Then you got the mid-range people that has grown. They got kids. They take care of their parents. You know, we still got to think about K-12 school. That's still going to be going on. Are people going to be taking time off who are they going to leave their kids with? Like all of these things are interconnected. So unless they're alumni that like live across the street from the school and they can stand outside in February. I mean, these are just all different things. I mean, I don't know if electively alumni would say anything before a decision is made because people got things to worry about. But then also just in general, most alumni don't really get riled up until after decisions are made and it hits the timeline. So I just think in the midst of everything else going on, I don't think that's a priority for them. I think most people are, if they have kids on campus, they're worrying about them getting sick or them going back to campus or not. I think it sucks for the student athletes too because they're going to be in a tough position and I'm worried about, you know, I don't trust the NCAA. No. And I don't know if they're going to give them an extension on eligibility or if they're going to honor their style. What about the softball kids? What about the bowling ball players? What about that? What are they going to do? What about the bowling ball players that want people to put extra funding towards, you know, school so they can be like University of Virginia? What? No, that's it. Those are extra points. Oh my God. Or is your brother plays division one football? What kind of conversations are you having from the perspective of an athlete who may have to play in the spring? Things may not be settled at this point. What is it like between he and your family? What kind of considerations are I playing? So there's like three things. The first thing is that if they play and my brother plays football, him playing a season in the spring means that we don't want him playing a season in the fall. Fall, exactly. That's what my issue just just for his health and safety. Like this is football is not basketball. It's not it. This is the most physical sport that people play. Well, you have one or two one or two concussions a game. You may have one or two concussions a season, for an entire NCAA division one basketball team. So the injury risk is the first thing. The second thing is just the time. And is there enough time to get everything done? And then the third thing for me is eligibility aside. There really isn't, in my opinion, a good reason to send these kids out to play in general. Now, again, professional athletes get paid and they are compensated for their risk. There's insurance benefits. There is no NCAA hospital. There ain't no, you know, there's no insurance plan for him after he's done with school. Like none of these things are taken care of. There's no union. There's nothing. So for me, and I get kind of upset with this and other group chats I'm a part of, because people who are not putting their themselves or their loved ones at risk are saying these kids are going to play for our entertainment. And it really pisses me off because it's my brother who you want to go out and entertain you so you can have your home come in and go stroll with your people you ain't seen in 20 years to make yourself feel good. But he's putting himself at risk. So to me, it's like we don't have to have college football, especially if you don't make no money. Let's be real, like there's, he's all about we make some money revenue. We don't make no money. Our, we are in the, you're in the red. We, we pay, we robbed Peter to pay Paul. Right. And you want people's kids and family to go out there so y'all can have homecoming and y'all can have by you classic. I don't care. I don't care. Like, I just don't care. So to me, it pisses me off on multiple levels, but just fundamentally what I've said to my brother is just control what you can control. He's getting ready to graduate, get out of school and then make a decision if you want to do a fifth grad year and be a grad transfer, stay where you at and do whatever you want to do. But to me, I think that HBCU alumni are the problem because we are consistently more concerned with our own entertainment and socialized and not the health and safety of the kids who are coming up under us who are entertaining us at these football games. I have heard someone say from an athletic standpoint, if you don't play, it is that much easier and that much faster that recruits and athletes will forget about you. I don't know how much truth there is to that. I know there is some, but I think everybody's in a pandemic. Right? So everybody's, you know, it's, you've heard about the University of Alabama. That's true. I mean, but, you know, are you gonna, are you really torn and say Alabama State no longer exists and I only see Troy, you know, there's thousands of D1, there's thousands of football players who would love to take them D1 spots. But let's just be real. Like if we put a D1 schools, there are thousands of D2 players who if someone's like, oh, I don't, I don't want to go to A&T or go to, go to Central no more because they're not playing. There's thousands of kids who would have went to Winston or went to Livingstone who are definitely gonna say, I'll take my ass to Central. I'll be in Central. Right. In a heartbeat. Yeah. Exactly. So they'll be fine. Winston, you have the fate of Detroit's Black college prospects in your hands, in your hands alone. What, what do you say about folks who are looking to play sports, coaches that contact you either even from Detroit high schools or from colleges that are that are connecting with your students? I know you're more focused on college entry period, but what is the interface that you have with athletics and what is it looking like today? You know, I think the people underestimate like Laura brought up some points like we send, I've seen probably more young ladies to play sports than I've seen young men like volleyball and bowling and softball, some of these other sports that allow a student to maybe get a partial scholarship or 65, 75% of their school pay for. That's a huge component to, you know, their college exists. Like, why, whether or not they might end up going to a school, I'd say like an HBCU because they can afford to do so because they can get a small D1 or D2 scholarship to be able to be a part of those athletics. So it's definitely a part of the conversation, you know, a lot of times, especially I say more so for the young ladies that I'm able to work with. So, I mean, it's a real thing. You know, it's a real, I think the Laura brought up the eligibility thing and the health risks part. So those are huge, huge components. I think we're seeing it even without student athletes, just in general with like, you know, parents wanting to send their babies away and whether or not they feel comfortable enough sending them away in the middle of a pandemic and you know, what places, what does the schools have in place for those things? I mean, you know, it's more than a notion, you know, and great points have been brought up about what revenue is actually benefiting us for sending them there. What is the risk reward piece for, you know, allowing them to play? I mean, I got a few young ladies who will just be, who'll be in Detroit this year. They're on volleyball and bowling, scholarships and other things and they're going to stay here and do, you know, the first semester at home, especially because they're not practicing to know they don't mandatory, they don't need to be on campus right now. So, you know, so it's a real thing. It's a very real conversation to have. I try again, I try to stop short of telling people what to do. My main thing is getting all the information we can get in front of you to be able to make an informed decision about, you know, what's best for your young person in the end. So, I'm just about, you know, getting the information in front and allowing them to see what's what. It's so interesting because none of y'all said it's going to be lit this spring. Not that I'm surprised at that because I know y'all think at a higher level than that. But so many people are saying it's going to be lit in February 21. And I think that that is the challenge. That is the challenge. It's going to be. People are stupid. I'll tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is. It's because they don't have winter homecomings. And so you don't know what it's like to be relegated to and being inside of building. Cop and stay great. During homecoming. Go ahead, let's go to Eagle Range. Go ahead. It's somebody that experienced homecomings at a small school. It's cool. But when you have a blizzard outside and two sports playing, let's talk like, come on, let's be real. Like think about the reason why you just don't make sense. You've been raised. Somebody mad, son. The fact that the media put out their plan in the last couple of days over the swag about spring football. Again, let's say a perfect world. Vaccine comes out. New Year's Eve. And everybody takes it. And everybody takes it. Yeah, they can't produce that much in six months. So we're talking about a one to two year plan, right? So, but even even in a worst case, to me, it's like, how do you, with your in a right mind, say we're going to have these me at schools like Delaware State, like Morgan start playing football in February? Like, are we serious right now? Like, it's stupid. But you know what else is stupid? But also stupid is that they're going to get more. They've already started trying to say to classics. This is dumb. Like, here's the interesting thing. And I think out of all of us, I think only you actually competed in college in a sport. If you play football in the spring, you're right. You're not going to be able to feel that in the fall. So, and if you try, let's say if you could, but even if you could, what does that do for the other sports in the spring? Because now you're extending your football athletes and everybody else, all your fall athletes in the spring, and you got your spring athletes competing, they already hard pressed for recognition. They already hard pressed for coverage. What is that going to do to your SID staff? Mexican said the hard pressed for coverage. We all got to share the gym. We don't talk practice facilities. So you're talking about, and guess who's going to get top notch on that football? Everybody else get out of here. And that's not. Also, especially, oh my God, weight loss madness. It's our weight room. What is that going to do to recruiting? Are there going to be exemptions where you can recruit during the season? Because typically that's not the case. And then, and then the other thing we need to talk about, the NFL draft happens in April. I don't see a reason for them to change that. That's a mess. That's a whole other mess. They're going to be playing championship games in April. Right. So now how, how are these kids going to be adequately assessed? Contact. Hey, look, I appreciate it. Everybody who's listening, continue to support us, hbcdigest.substack.com. Don't forget to join us on IGTV for the overtime next. It's been Digest at the Dark. We'll see you next time. Peace.