Transcript: Race in America: Giving Voice with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf -

MR. BREWER: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Jerry Brewer, a sports columnist here at The Post, and I’m so excited today because joining me is former NBA player, activist, and author of the new book, “In the Blink of an Eye,” Mahmoud Abdul‑Rauf.

Mahmoud, welcome to Washington Post Live.

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Thank you for having me.

MR. BREWER: Let's get started, man. I'm really excited about this. You spoke to former NBA player Etan Thomas recently, and you said something that was right after my heart as a writer: "When you leave a legacy of literature, you leave your story for eternity." Why is the time now to tell your story?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Wow. That's a very good question. You know, there have been a lot of changes that have taken place, socially and politically, and I've been for some years now telling my story. I'm constantly getting some great feedback, and this is a story that needs to be told. And so, for me, looking at all of the responses that I'm getting as well as the conditions the way they are now, I felt it was a great time.

Plus, we have a saying. It's a saying in Islam called "Sadaqah Jariyah," and it's sort of what you just read. Leaving that type of legacy, you know, when we're dead and gone, whether it's building a road, whether it's writing a book, if someone can look back 50 years from now and they can receive or extract something from the book that can impact their life in some way, you're still getting blessings even in your death. So, for me, it's important to be able to leave that legacy.

MR. BREWER: That's wonderful.

Your book wastes no time getting to your famous protests and the backlash that you experienced. Is there a greater risk for Black athletes to acknowledge the historical injustices of America than for other public figures?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: I definitely believe so. You know, I was just looking something that Kianja Yumahdatella [phonetic] when she was talking about race and racism as not exceptions in this country. Instead, they're the glue that pulls America together, especially as it relates to Black people. In every walk of life, we feel it. We're crushed by it, and in particular, athletes because we're in positions of notoriety, of visibility, and enormous amounts of wealth, and so with that type of person not to embrace this notion of America being exceptional and you want to go against the grain, you of all people making this money and so‑called made it, it's a major slap in the face to the establishment as far as I'm concerned, so a huge threat when athletes take positions like that.

MR. BREWER: You wrote that you were portrayed as a troublemaker by the media for calling the American flag a symbol of tyranny and oppression. How does your book reclaim your narrative?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Well, I think people will find when they read the book‑‑listen, I've been saying this for years, and I've been living it as well. I'm a people's person. I'm attached to‑‑I'm not perfect. None of us are, but I'm attached to trying to find the truth and articulating the truth as much as possible. I'll dialogue with anybody, but I won't accept any thing.

And sometimes, especially nowadays, if you go against the grain, if you have a different opinion, you know, you're ostracized. You're condemned for that, and when they read the book, they'll come across my personality. And they'll see that those things that were said wasn't the person that was being portrayed.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, it was interesting to be reminded in the book that you had quietly had this protest going for a year before anyone noticed, and then you had this moment in which you go from sitting on the bench and stretching to praying. Tell me about the evolution of the protest, particularly after the media started to pay more attention to it, and what did the praying symbolize to you?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Well, the evolution actually had started the previous season. It could be four, five, six months, and I started reading a lot, all different types of authors, man, Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy. I mean, you name it, Howard Zinn, Randall Robinson. And I was just coming across information that didn't sit well with me, and so I started to‑‑and then being a Muslim, you know, what Allah tells us, to stand up for justice, even if it's against your own self. You can't be for God and oppression at the same time, and so there's a symbol that in my eyes represent being attached to that. I couldn't stand for it, and I still don't. And so that's the evolution of it.

How it happened, I got a call‑‑a visit, rather, from Todd Eley with the Denver Nuggets, and he came into the locker room. And he said, "Look, someone, you know, has been made aware that you haven't been standing. Would you want to talk?" and I said, "Look, I don't mind talking to anybody." These are conversations that we have all the time as players. We have them on the bus. We have them on the plane. So I don't see anything, you know‑‑anything out of this world about it.

I ended up having this conversation with him. Then next thing I know, I'm coming to practice for a shoot around, and the media just swarmed the court after. And they asked me the famous question, "What do you think about the American flag?" and I spoke my conscience. And then after that, I'm coming to the game the next night, getting ready to play, and Jim Gillen, the trainer, says, "Hey, look, Bernie wants to see you down the hall." I said, "Okay."

And I go down there, and as soon as I get into the office, he said, "Some people from the NBA called me. They want‑‑they want you to stand. If you don't, you'll be fined. What do you say?‑‑or you'll be suspended." I said, "I can't do it," and so he got them on the phone. They identified themselves. Actually, I don't know who. I can't remember who it was, but they identified themselves as Jewish. Don't know why, but they ended up giving me an example, and at that time, I said, "Well, thank you"‑‑I was polite‑‑"for sharing that with me." I said, "But that‑‑that example doesn't apply to me." They said, "Okay."

And I was so green. I had never been suspended for anything in my life. I'm thinking there's going to be this act of legislation, you know, it was going to be a process. I said, "Well, can I put on my uniform and play?" He said, "No." I said, "Why?" I said, "Well"‑‑I said, "Now? I'm fined"‑‑I mean, "I'm suspended?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, can I go into the arena and support my team?" He said, "No. They don't even want you on the premises," and so that's how it all transpired.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, I see the LSU jersey behind you, and it takes me back more than 30 years. And for me, that was‑‑that was my childhood, and I still remember Loyola Marymount and LSU, 148 to 141 in 1990, and all the great players who were in the court for that non‑conference came.

But I wanted to ask you about your college coach, Dale Brown, and an autobiography that was just seminal in your life, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." How did that book impact you, and how did that shape your views on society and then later your protests?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: When Dale Brown‑‑I had never heard of Malcolm up to that point. When he gave me that book, I don't even know if he knew the impact that it would have on me. I couldn't put it down, and I'm listening to him and how he articulates issues. And I'm seeing his connection with God, but just as important, man, I just saw his fearlessness. You know, he had a courageousness that just‑‑that I admired, that I didn't have.

And so, as a young man, you know, as a person, myself, when I see something that I really love and I want for myself, I'm trying to do everything I can to get it. So it put me on a journey. It put me on a journey of seeking information but also changing who I was. I didn't want to be that person when I saw something that I was afraid to say something about it or do something about it, and I started‑‑how we psyche ourselves up in the game, right? "Man, you're tough. You can do this." I had to do the same thing academically with myself, learning how to take steps of telling people no, of throwing information out there and seeing how it feels and feeling uncomfortable and coming back.

And so, if it wasn't for that book, I really‑‑I don't know if I would have embraced Islam. I don't know if I would after embracing Islam‑‑I wouldn't have even gotten to the point to even begin probably to think about doing the things that I ended up doing and being firm with that and owning. So his‑‑man, his book impacted my life tremendous‑‑and still does, still does.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, you point out that many Muslims did not agree with you that the Quran directed them to oppose nationalism as you did. How did those reactions affect you?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: You know what? I was already prepared for that. There's always a different‑‑difference of opinion. I was, though, expecting more unity with us, but at the same time, I wasn't surprised. I mean, Islam is not against, you know, having an attachment to a language, a culture, and a nation, but what I'm talking about is a toxic nationalism, right, an imperialist type of nation, and that's something totally different.

But, look, man, I've grown up in the South. I had a strong Black mother, and I've‑‑I was at that time also‑‑man, I had begun to associate myself with a lot of‑‑a lot of strong Black men as well as strong Black women that I began to have conversations with, and so that didn't‑‑that wasn't going to be something that was going to cause me to bend or to go against what I felt my mission was, was to live up to what I believe to be true. You know, if you can convince me that I'm wrong, I don't have the type of pride not to submit. I'll submit to the truth. I'll say, "Hey, I was wrong," but until you can do that, it has to make sense to me. And I don't care what your label is, you know, Muslim, Christian, you know, philosopher. It has to make sense. So that's‑‑that's how I took it, and I just kept on rolling and continuing to do so.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, "In the Blink of an Eye" is published by Kaepernick Publishing. Six years ago, when Colin started his protest, everyone wanted to talk to you and get your insights, you know, 20 years later about how you felt about Colin. What's your relationship like with Kaep today?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: You know, Kaep is a busy man. I mean, we talked, especially in the beginning of this project and even, you know, in the middle and towards the end of it, but we did have a meeting when all of this happened. We have a mutual friend in the Bay Area named Hashim Ali Alauddeen [phonetic], and it was pretty much a private meeting. And he said something that resonated with me during that time, and it resonated with me because that's the way I felt and that's the way I feel when I ended up doing what I did years ago. He said this is the most free that he's ever felt in his whole life, and that's the takeaway that I have from everything that‑‑all the conversations that we had, and that once you feel free, it's nothing like it. It's priceless, and it allows you the mobility to do what you do, to move the way he moves. And so that's something that I admire, and many people, many people admire when he took that position and then began to spread himself out to do other things, whether it's the Know Your Rights campaign, whether it's the things that he did for the Somalis of sending a plane of food over. He took it from the plane of words to the plane of action, so this is a lesson for all of us.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, I'm really interested in that feeling of freedom and to not feel that way even when you have thousands of people rooting for you because you can throw a football or shoot a basketball. How did you feel before‑‑if that's free, what was the feeling that you had before when you were dealing with all of these things and people were still rooting for you as long as you were on the field of play?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Well, man, you feel restricted. You feel‑‑you feel in prison, and I mean that once you understand‑‑you don't necessarily know it fully at the time because you've been living a certain way for so long. You've been conditioned to, hey, just play the game, right, don't rock the boat, think about your family. I am thinking about my family, but I'm just not thinking about my family. I'm thinking about generations.

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And so when you‑‑when you get that sense, it's hard to put it into words. George Jackson has a statement with patience. He said, "Patience taken too far is cowardice."

So I've grown up constantly like having this nervousness when I would see something or hear something, and when that nervousness leaves you, right, so, hey, look, man, we're all going to die. None of us are going to make it out of here alive, right? If I say I fear God and I say I stand for truth, this is‑‑this is part and parcel of it. When you look at all of those great leaders that came before that we say we admire, especially after they die, the Martin Luther Kings, the Malcolm X's, the Marcus Garveys, wherever they are, the Ida B. Wells, the Fannie Lou Hamers, people that stood for something and took risks, then this is‑‑this is how it goes.

And so you don't have a sense of‑‑you don't fear death. When you don't fear dying anymore‑‑I mean, we're all going to die‑‑it allows you that ability to just say, hey, man, I'm going to stand on what I believe, whether you like it or not, and that's my focus is to live with a free conscious and a free soul, whether people like it or not. And it makes it easier.

It doesn't mean that it's not going to be hard, but it makes it easier to do. Just like anything, the more you practice, you get better at it.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, let's talk about the idea of progress, and we always often seem to want to measure that linearly, and it never works that way. But I'm struck by the fact that your protests and Colin's happens 20 years apart, yet the exact same thing happened to Colin that happened to you. So what does that say about how society has evolved?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: That's a‑‑that's a great question. I don't believe that progress is linear. I believe there's a lot of ebbs and flows. If it was, then we wouldn't still be dealing with what we're protesting, what we've been protesting years before we were even born.

You know, I talk about this a lot. If you take the Black and‑‑if you take what's been happening, whether it's George Floyd and all of those, Sandra Bland and all of those murders that were taking place, protests that were happening, and you turn that into a black and white photo and you look back during the Martin Luther King years and prior to that and after that, nothing seems to have changed. And so there's this notion sometimes of this concept of the narrative of perpetual progress: The more time advances, things just naturally get better. I don't believe that.

And so for me, this is how I explained that. To explain it, it's gradual, and there's going to be ebbs and flows. And unless we become engaged and stay attached to and intimate with these issues, right, there will continue to be those ebbs and flows and those long distances before something is done, where we see, oh, now another 30 years, there's going to be a Kaepernick situation that occurs as opposed to every day. We go through this every day. There should be protests and resistance every day until stuff has changed, right? I mean considerably so, and until that happens, we'll continue to see this huge gap, and old Mahmoud or the Muhammad Alis, the Kaepernicks, 10, 15, 20, 30 years apart.

MR. BREWER: LeBron James. Let's talk about him for a second. When he spoke up, he was told to shut up and dribble, and he came back and famously said, "I am more than an athlete." What does "more than an athlete" mean to you?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: We're no different than a politician who may be good at tennis and may have other skills. We're the people that they love to put into a box. I don't know if it's because sports predominantly, like when you think of football and basketball‑‑even baseball is predominantly people of color or Black people, but look, we have‑‑we have Bill Bradley who's a Senator, right? We have Kareem Abdul‑Jabbar, who is a phenomenal speaker and written so many books, right? So more than an athlete means that we have other skills. We have a mind that is just not imprisoned in the world if basketball. We see things like you see things, right? We have opinions on it, and we shouldn't allow those type of‑‑those type statements to threaten us away from utilizing our voice.

It will happen. It will continue to happen until the day we die, but "more than an athlete" to me says just that. We're complex. We're versatile. We have many talents, some more than others, that should be appreciated and respected just like anyone else.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, you told The Post back in 2007, it seems like now in many respects, protest has become fashionable. What did you mean by that?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Well, you know, there's a political scientist that actually, I think, summed it up, Richard Iton, and he said once things become routine, it's easily accepted and molded into the, you know, overall hegemony of things, right? You know, the elite, the people in control can take it and fashion it, and so when things become fashionable, right, it's easier to do.

You know, I think about what Dr. Harry Edwards said to me, and these are not my words. I think anyone who stands up for something is a great thing, and we should applaud them as long as we find that it's sincere. But he was saying‑‑he said, you know, when you‑‑when Muhammad Ali did what he did, it was framed under the Black Power movement. When Kaepernick did what he did, it was framed under the Black Lives Matter movement. He said when you and Craig Hodges, right, did what you did, there was no movement to frame it, right? It's like you guys were, you know, out, out in an ocean, you know, or you're out in the ocean by yourself.

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Hello?

MR. BREWER: Professional sports leagues now have become a big part of that. I mean, you talk about strength in numbers, right? But some of it is a bit performative. What do you think about what leagues are doing, and do you think it's enough to foster change?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: I lost it. Can you say that one more time?

MR. BREWER: Yes. Professional sports leagues, you know, as you were saying, they've become more involved in this push at least in a performative sense.

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Mm‑hmm.

MR. BREWER: Do you think they're doing enough to foster change, or do you think this is just something they're doing in the moment because it's fashionable?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: I think‑‑I think a lot of it is for public consumption and it's fashionable. NBA, for example, right, you know, I hear a lot of times, well, you know, they're progressive. They may be more progressive than the NFL, and my response is I think that they're just more sophisticated, you know.

And one of the examples I use, you know, they say, well, we allow our athletes to speak out, I heard sometime ago, but when they were in China, I think there was a case with James Harden and I think Westbrook was getting ready to say something. They were immediately stopped, right? Basically, on to the next question, "We don't want to deal with that," because of the situation that's happening in Turkistan, I believe, or with the Uyghur, the Muslims in China, the genocide that's taking place and the relationships that the NBA has, from what I'm told, with facilities in that area, right, not wanting to affect business.

So I look at that, and then I look at even the‑‑what the NBA is doing in terms of being vocal. If you were really progressive as you say you were, right, you have people‑‑I'm going to put myself out of the equation. Take a Craig Hodges. This man had won the three‑point contest three years in a row. No one has ever done that. He should be‑‑at the minimum, he should be at courtside in a God‑doggone‑‑a‑‑sitting in a throne at half court every‑‑every three‑point contest that they have, right, until somebody breaks his record, but also when you're having these venues and you're talking about social justice, why haven't you ever invited a Craig Hodges? Why don't you reach back in history of those people that a lot of people, even people in the NBA would say, hey, man, they were blackballed, and they were treated unfairly? Why don't you pull them back and say, hey, right, we want‑‑we want to make things right with you? But that doesn't happen.

So I don't think‑‑I think it's more so for public consumption. It's not because there's this really altruistic sense of wanting to do the right thing.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, if you were in the NBA today, how might you protest, and how do you think it would be perceived?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Oh, that's a‑‑that's a tough question. I mean, now with social media, social media has changed the game. We didn't have that when we were coming up. So the media could control the narrative a whole lot more, which is why I think that's something that catapulted and helped Kaepernick's situation, because you can see the response.

When I came out, you know, I got a lot of letters, and most of the letters that I received‑‑yeah, I had death threats, and I had all of these things given to me. But most of the letters, well, they were from Jews, agnostics, Christians. They were supportive. They were in agreement, right, and didn't like a lot‑‑doesn't‑‑don't like a lot of what's happening in America. But you wouldn't hear that, right? The media can control the narrative more.

So, in this time, it's a little different. So I definitely would have still‑‑I'm still doing it now. I would have utilized those resources a whole lot more.

I love what Kaepernick did, that he had a great team with him, and he was able to‑‑because people are funny. You know, if you‑‑even if you just speak out, they want to know, "Well, what else are you going to do?" Some people aren't even speaking out. Look, applaud the man for doing that if that's all he want to do to bring a light to it, but he took it further. He took it a step further. He began to do other things with prisoners, like I said with Somalia, Know Your Rights campaign. So these are the things that I would like to think that I would have done if I was playing now at the age that I was when I took that position, things that I'm doing in my own way now at 53 years old.

MR. BREWER: We haven't had a chance to talk about all that you have done as a symbol, as an advocate having Tourette syndrome and that compulsive need to have everything feel perfect, as you said before. How has Tourette's and living with Tourette's really defined your life and help shape how you view the world?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: How is it? It's a major struggle from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep. You're constantly trying to navigate controlling your mind and your body, put them on the same page. However, I learned at a very young age that blows that don't break your back strengthen it, that God doesn't give you a burden that you can't bear, and for every weakness, potential weakness that you feel you have, he gives you a strength.

And so I believe that Tourette syndrome has taught me a lot about myself. It's made me look at the world differently, made me more sympathetic and empathetic. It's pushed me, right, where I myself wouldn't have gone without it. I wouldn't have been the basketball player that I became without Tourette syndrome. I wanted to stop in an hour and a half, but it was like nope. You have to satisfy this urge. You have to satisfy it or make your life miserable.

You know, the way I look at injustice, the way I look at people, whether they have disorder or disability, right, you know what it feels like, and so you want to do everything within your power to try to alleviate those stresses for people because you live with it every day.

So this is, in a nutshell, kind of like what living with Tourette's is, especially if you embrace it and you understand it and embrace it like this is what I have and I'm going to use it to my advantage. I'm not going to allow it to cripple me. You reap way more benefits than the opposite.

MR. BREWER: Mahmoud, one quick basketball question before we go. Were you born too soon? You see the way that the game is played today. Your style, as Phil Jackson had said previously, sort of mimics the way that Steph Curry plays. How might you fit into today's game?

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Oh, wow. Was I born too soon? No, I wasn't born too soon.

[Laughter]

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Every generation could say that, but, man, this style of play‑‑when we were coming up, we had to feed the big man. Whether the big man was great or not great, we had to go through him. Now it's a guard's game. People are putting it on the floor. They're coming off screens. They're running and gunning. You can't really touch them in certain respects, you know, faced up. So it's almost like shooting practice.

I would like to think‑‑I would like to think that I would have fared very well in today's game with how it's played. You know, you look at a Golden State. They don't have a green light. I always say they have a fluorescent light, and when you have, you know, the freedom to shoot like that‑‑and any shooter or scorer would tell you‑‑the goal is no longer regular size. It looks double and triple size now.

MR. BREWER: You absolutely would have fit into an era of a fluorescent light very well. I think you're being a little bit too humble.

Mahmoud, unfortunately, we're out of time. So we'll have you leave it there.

Mahmoud Abdul‑Rauf, thanks for joining us.

MR. ABDUL‑RAUF: Thank you for having me.

MR. BREWER: And thanks to all of you for tuning in today. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to find more information.

I'm Jerry Brewer, and thank you for joining Washington Post Live.

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