Bourbon 'n BrownTown

Ep. 61 - The Real Color in Sports 2.0 ft. Jasson Perez

Episode Summary

Episode Notes

BrownTown chops it up with Jasson Perez, activist, researcher, and sports enthusiast, to talk all things sports post-COVID and post-George Floyd uprisings. In this part two, the team speaks candidly on sports organization's co-opt of Black Lives Matter, the relationship between players and owners, polarization as a strategy, and competing theories of social change. Originally recorded November 2020. Following up on BrownTown's first installment from 2017 focusing on the aftermath of Colin Kaepernick's kneeling to protest police brutality, Jasson joins to talk all things sports in the later half of 2020--post-COVID and post-George Floyd uprisings. With multiple, interrelated crises at the fore, the team speaks candidly on sports organizations' co-optation of Black Lives Matter, the relationship between players and owners, polarization as a strategy, and competing theories of social change. Originally recorded November 2020.

GUEST

Jasson Perez is a Senior Research Analyst at ACRE who studies the connections between police violence, mass incarceration, and economic injustice. Through his research, he works to create campaigns to end mass incarceration and police violence and demonstrate that the fight for democratic socialism must embrace the politics of decarceration and abolition. Previously, at the Cook Center on Social Equity, Jasson did research on the racial wealth gap created by housing discrimination against Black homebuyers. Before becoming a researcher Jasson was a lead organizer for SEIU Local 73 and BYP100. When Jasson isn’t selling his labor for sustenance, you can find him subpar rapping with the rap group BBU, organizing with the Afro-Socialists & Socialists of Color Caucus of DSA and learning how to write about politics and economics in a manner that won’t bore you.

Topics mentioned include:

Naomi Osaka wears mask in memory of Breonna Taylor at US Open
Maya Moore left WNBA to work on criminal justice
Barack Obama and The Role of the Black Bourgeoisie in Coopting Our Movements
Brian Urlacher reacts to Jacob Blake and NBA strike, Bears denounce
WNBA have been doing the work (1, 2, 3)

Follow Jasson on Twitter and Instagram; and Chicago's AfroSocialists & Socialists of Color Caucus via Linktree, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

CREDITS: Intro/outro soundbites from CNN and Milwaukee Bucks set to music by Genta Tamashiro. Outro song I Can't Breathe by Montana of 300. Audio engineered by Genta Tamashiro. Episode photo by Jasson Perez.