AMY GOODMAN: We=92re going to continue, though, now with Dave Zirin,
sports columnist, author of a number of books about politics and
sports. His latest is A People=92s History of Sports in the United
States.
Dave, talk about the other issues that you=92ve been following, as well
as around the Super Bowl, though not particularly this ad against
abortion.
DAVE ZIRIN: Yeah, this ad almost takes all the oxygen out of the room,
which is too bad, because there=92s a terrific story about the
relationship between the city of New Orleans and the rise of the New
Orleans Saints. I mean, count me as somebody who=92s a serious skeptic
when it comes to all those stories about how a team is lifting a city
out of its doldrums, like when the Detroit Tigers made their run last
year, and people were saying, =93Oh, it=92s lifting up the city in the
context of the recession.=94 A lot of that is hooey. It=92s absolute
hooey. It=92s used to fill copy in the sports pages. But with New
Orleans, it really is different.
I=92m a big believer that sports is like a hammer, and you could use a
hammer to build a house or bash somebody over the head. And this is
one of those cases where sports is really speaking to the best angels
of people=92s nature in New Orleans.
I was speaking to Malik Rahim, who I know you=92ve had on your show
before, a former Black Panther Party member, someone who has been a
community activist in New Orleans for thirty years. And I asked him
about the role that the Saints are playing in the city. And I expected
Malik to be a bit of a skeptic about it. But Malik said to me, =93I
haven=92t seen people in the Ninth Ward or in Algiers this happy since
Katrina. And I haven=92t seen African Americans and working-class whites
talk to each other so much in all three decades since I=92ve lived in
New Orleans.=94 And I think it=92s really helped by the fact that, more
than any other team in the NFL, players who play for the Saints, post-
Katrina actually live in the city and are part of the rebuilding
effort in the city. So there=92s a real connection there between team
and city that, honestly, you just don=92t see anymore.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Dave, you=92ve been involved in plans for a Super
Bowl party that has an anti-militarism theme. Could you talk about
this whole issue that you alluded to earlier of the involvement of the
military in Super Bowls?
DAVE ZIRIN: Oh, yeah. Well, that=92s the whole funny thing about, =93Oh,
we can=92t have advocacy ads for the Super Bowl.=94 But last year David
Petraeus flipped the coin at the Super Bowl. Every year, you have the
fighter planes fly overhead. It=92s a huge recruitment day for the US
armed forces. And particularly in the context of the war on terror,
the Super Bowl has been an absolute center for military recruitment on
a year-in, year-out basis.
And this year I=92m teaming up with the Iraq Veterans Against the War,
IVAW, and we=92re actually going to have a Super Bowl party at the IVAW
house here in Washington, DC, where we=92re going to watch the game,
without question, but we=92re also going to speak about de-linking the
fun of football with the reality of war. Far too often, sports is used
as this idiotic metaphor for war=97quarterbacks are field generals, and
they throw bullet passes or bombs=97when in reality we know that war is
very different. War is life and death. War is long periods of boredom
punctuated by horrifying terror. So, if you want to just watch the
game and have fun watching the game but also speak out against
militarism, please email me, dave(at)edgeofsports.com, and I=92ll hook
you up at the IVAW house here in Washington, DC to watch the big game.
AMY GOODMAN: What about New Orleans Saints player Scott Fujita, who
you profiled?
DAVE ZIRIN: I mean, this has just been a terrific thing for me to see
Scott Fujita get a lot of attention over the last couple of weeks,
just because the Saints are in the Super Bowl. Scott Fujita is a
linebacker, went to Cal Berkeley. He also is adopted by Japanese
parents. He=92s a Caucasian guy, big blonde guy, six-five, 260. His
family is Japanese, his adopted family. And his father was actually
born in a Japanese internment camp, and his grandparents were
interned, as well.
And so, when the war on terror started, Scott Fujita started to speak
out against Dick Cheney, against the secret prisons, because he spoke
about what happened to his parents. He went public to ESPN and said,
=93Look, we had internment camps in this country. We cannot have this
again. That=92s not what this country needs to be about.=94 And so, Scott
spoke out against that, and so I developed a political relationship
with Scott.
And when the National Equality March was called for this past fall,
200,000 people marching in DC for LGBT rights, I contacted a whole
bunch of athletes to see if one of them would sign on to call for
people to come to DC and march, and Scott responded without hesitation
and said, =93Absolutely.=94 And he did an interview with me, where he
spoke about how set he is that ... marriage should be a right for
everybody, for all LGBT people, and that LGBT equality should be
something that cannot wait. And Scott was very brave in speaking out
for that, because oftentimes I think we see the pro sports locker room
as being the last acceptable hamlet of homophobia. And so, to have
Scott Fujita and another player on the Baltimore Ravens, Brendan
Ayanbadejo, speak out for LGBT rights and marriage rights and civil
rights, that made a huge difference. So I just have a lot of affection
for Scott, and I love the fact that he=92s getting noticed and profiled
by all these big newspapers, because he deserves it.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Dave, I=92d like to ask you about another topic relating
to football. It got a lot of attention a few months ago, and it
potentially is perhaps the biggest scandal in the National Football
League and in football, in general, which is the issue of head
injuries, two ballplayers and permanent brain damage, and how the NFL
sought to basically ignore the problem for years. But it has enormous
implication for children in high school and college sports, as well.
DAVE ZIRIN: You know, a player, a former player, Dave Meggyesy, once
said to me that when you sign an NFL contract, you sign away your
right to have a middle age. And it is true. You meet players who are
in their mid-thirties, and they speak openly about the fact that when
they=92re in their mid-forties they might not be able to communicate
with their wife and kids the way they once could. I=92m thinking of
Andre Waters, who was a star safety for the Philadelphia Eagles, who
committed suicide at age forty-five, and when they did an autopsy, he
had the brain tissue of an eighty-eight-year-old with Alzheimer=92s.
This is very real. And the NFL has tried to sweep it under the carpet
for decades.
And yet, players are getting faster, players are getting stronger. And
ironically, the more they make the helmets, quote-unquote, =93safer,=94
the more dangerous it gets, because players feel like they can be more
reckless and launch themselves at other players. So, it=92s a very
difficult situation.
Malcolm Gladwell, the author of so many bestselling books, like Blink,
he wrote in The New Yorker that maybe someday we would look back at
professional football like dog fighting and see it as something that
should be outlawed, just because of the sheer level of carnage that it
puts on the brain. Yet we all know that the NFL is by far the most
popular sport in the United States, and it=92s not going anywhere.
So, the NFL has a real problem on its hands. They need to figure out a
way to deal with this, whether it=92s through equipment or a change in
the rules, because if it keeps going like this, I think they=92re in for
some serious problems.
AMY GOODMAN: Dave Zirin, we want to thank you very much for being with
us, sports columnist, author of a number of books. His latest, A
People=92s History of Sports in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: And Dave, who are you rooting for in the game on Sunday?
DAVE ZIRIN: Oh, are you kidding me? Go Saints! Who dat?!
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